A Life Together: Wisdom of Community from the Christian East

By Sigrist Seraphim

"What if humanity came together in the light and spirit poured out at Pentecost? Would it not be possible to become of one heart and mind and to discover a unity? Can we live together, and together touch the Divine?"

Writing in the ancient desert tradition of short meditations on a spiritual theme, Bishop Seraphim Sigrist explores what community means and how unity among human beings is truly possible. With insight drawn from Fr. Alexander Men and other theologians of the Orthodox tradition, as well as his own long-term involvement in supporting religious communities in Russia and America, he offers his readers a cultured and complex weave of Christian insight. A Life Together is a wonderful resource for reflection: a private retreat with an experiences spiritual father.

"Bishop Seraphim's elegant and wise book is full of riches. He excavates the nature of love that builds up the mystery of the human being in and through community." - Father John A. McGuckin, Professor of Byzantine Christian Studies, Columbia University

"This book is a sure antidote to today's cynicism about the 'institutional church' and a true gift to all who seek the coming together of Christians in mutual love and joyful mission." - Rev. Joel Scandrett, PhD, Instructor of Theology, Trinity School for Ministry

• Language: English
• Publisher: Paraclete Press
• Release date: Apr 1, 2011
• ISBN: 9781557258960

Book preview

a life together

a life together

Wisdom of Community from

the Christian East

BISHOP SERAPHIM SIGRIST

pub

A Life Together: Wisdom of Community from the Christian East

2011 First Printing

Copyright © 2011 Bishop Seraphim Sigrist

ISBN: 978-1-55725-800-7

Scripture references marked KJV are from the Authorized King James Version of the Holy Bible.

Scripture references marked RSV are from the Revised Standard Version of the Bible, copyright © 1946, 1952, and 1971 by the Division of Christian Education of the National Council of the Churches of Christ in the United States of America. Used by permission. All rights reserved.

Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data

Sigrist, Seraphim.

A life together : wisdom of community from the Christian East / by Seraphim Sigrist.

p. cm.

Includes bibliographical references.

ISBN 978–1–55725–800–7

1. Church—Meditations. 2. Communities—Religious aspects—

Christianity—Meditations. I. Title.

BV600.3.S55 20110

262′.019--dc22

2010051153

10 9 8 7 6 5 4 3 2 1

All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reproduced, stored in an electronic retrieval system, or transmitted in any form or by any means—electronic, mechanical, photocopy, recording, or any other—except for brief quotations in printed reviews, without the prior permission of the publisher.

Published by Paraclete Press

Brewster, Massachusetts

www.paracletepress.com

Printed in the United States of America

Contents

Preface

Part One

a life of all joined in all

Part Two

seeing

Part Three

each complete in the other

Part Four

prayer and mission

Epilogue

Appendix

biographical notes and

suggestions for further reading

preface

To discover the church is to discover community.

This can be disquieting and unexpected for a new Christian. So C. S. Lewis’s diabolical tempter Screwtape writes that when he gets to his pew and looks around him he sees just that selection of his neighbors whom he has hitherto avoided. From this can come the more or less unconscious feeling that he is showing great humility and condescension in going to church with these ‘smug’ commonplace neighbors at all.

Of course, as Screwtape notes, this feeling involves the subconscious illusions that these neighbors are insignificant in God’s eyes, and also that somehow since they are not wearing togas they are not of the same family as the Christians of the New Testament time were.

Community entered into in this illusory way—as mere church activity, or as judgment—will at most create segmentation of one’s life: hearty and perfunctory greetings on Sunday and perhaps an occasional committee meeting or parish outing. So then a faith that began so brightly becomes but the spiritual compartment of a life with many other compartments scarcely related to it at all.

The systematic effort to destroy religious faith that was so central to the communist regime in Russia was many sided. It included the closing of churches, the harassment of believers, the inculcation of atheism through the schools, and also one more insidious dimension that was beyond the possibility or imagination of the Roman persecutor in the days of the early martyrs—the limitation of church activity, in those churches allowed to remain open for the time, to the formal and ritualistic. No meetings to study and discuss the Bible. No Sunday schools. No prayer circles. Not even the tea or coffee after liturgy or the parish picnic, which are the sort of minimums of the American church community.

In this the enemies of Christianity showed a realization like that of Screwtape’s—that in attacking the possibility of community, they strike at the core of what Christianity is. Yet, as again and again before in history when the church is attacked or in decline, it manifests a power of resurrection. As the Russian priest, and leader of Christian renewal, Fr. Alexander Men said:

Christianity is the religion of death, instantly transformed into life. . . . They counted us as dead, but lo we are alive. These words spoken by the Apostle Paul have resonated for all time. Throughout the Church’s history there were incredible disappointments and it often seemed that she was crushed, but by the power of God she resurrected as many times . . .

Fr. Men said this in response to a question at an impromptu meeting around a table in a home where people had gathered to meet him. These meetings were themselves a resurrection of that principle of community that the enemies of faith had so assiduously sought to destroy.

Mark Weiner, who had been baptized by Fr. Men, was one of those who made his home available for these dangerous but vital meetings and he summarizes the situation of the time well:

From the beginning of the 1980s, the KGB pressures on Fr. Men’s parish in Novoderevnya intensified. Frequently he was called in for interrogation and warnings. There were interrogations and arrests of parishioners. Even the briefest opportunities for meeting with his spiritual children in the tiny office of the pastor, in the little house by the church, were forbidden. Thus the talks about Christ, the church, the Bible, and life and death moved to private homes and kitchens.

The form of the parish’s infrastructure was the gatherings. This is how we referred to the groups of Fr. Men’s parishioners (mostly young people) who met weekly in private homes for communal prayer, for Bible study, and for the union of all. Gathering was the name chosen by Father deliberately so that the criminal words group or seminar would not suddenly leak out by accident (especially over tapped phones). For the KGB these words constituted a ready criminal charge. These gatherings were in fact the usual means of meeting with Fr. Alexander outside the church.

But the word gathering, when you think of it, is the most basic translation of the original word for church, ecclesia, isn’t it? Driven by necessity and with the visionary leadership of a priest, a most basic and precious reality of the church was recovered in kitchens and living rooms

Reviews for A Life Together

[steve_walker-348810 · Rating: 5 out of 5 stars]

Profound meditation on the concept of Christian
community by a retired Orthodox bishop.